concretizer: remove ad-hoc rule for external packages (#20193)

fixes #20040

Matching compilers among nodes has been prioritized
in #20020. Selection of default variants has been
tuned in #20182. With this setup there is no need
to have an ad-hoc rule for external packages. On
the contrary it should be removed to prefer having
default variant values over more external nodes in
the DAG.

2 files changed, 10 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/solver/concretize.lp b/lib/spack/spack/solver/concretize.lp
index d8b7c125be..2de7030ddf 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/solver/concretize.lp
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/solver/concretize.lp
@@ -515,13 +515,6 @@ root(Dependency, 1) :- not root(Dependency), node(Dependency).
     : provider_weight(Provider, Weight), root(Provider)
 }.
 
-% For external packages it's more important than for others
-% to match the compiler with their parent node
-#maximize{
-    Weight@12,Package
-    : compiler_version_match(Package, Weight), external(Package)
-}.
-
 % Try to use default variants or variants that have been set
 #minimize {
     Weight@11,Package,Variant,Value
diff --git a/lib/spack/spack/test/concretize_preferences.py b/lib/spack/spack/test/concretize_preferences.py
index d13748ad8b..9ec304e624 100644
--- a/lib/spack/spack/test/concretize_preferences.py
+++ b/lib/spack/spack/test/concretize_preferences.py
@@ -371,3 +371,13 @@ mpi:
         spec = Spec('callpath')
         with pytest.raises(ConfigError):
             spack.package_prefs.get_package_permissions(spec)
+
+    @pytest.mark.regression('20040')
+    def test_variant_not_flipped_to_pull_externals(self):
+        """Test that a package doesn't prefer pulling in an
+        external to using the default value of a variant.
+        """
+        s = Spec('vdefault-or-external-root').concretized()
+
+        assert '~external' in s['vdefault-or-external']
+        assert 'externaltool' not in s